Converting monsters from Dragon magazine

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

Most of the shadow panthers' time is spet in their mountain habitat, where they lair in hidden caves. They are exceptional climbers, using their hooked tentacles to find the narrowest of purchases.

Add a climb speed of 20 feet?

Skills: Wemics have a +8 racial bonus on Jump checks. Give them a +4?

 

[Cleon]

Str 19 is fine, and the call to rescue works...as flavor text. Nothing in it really cries out "special ability".

I'll get these kitties Homebrewed shortly.

Fair enough.

They definitely need a Climb speed, it'll help them going over mountains. Climb 20 ft. like a Leopard is fine.

Let's start talking skills and feats.

I'm thinking we should just give them a Leopard's racial skill bonuses and put their 3 extra skill points in Hide to mostly compensate for the penalty of being Large.

That'd give them:

Skills: Balance +12, Climb +11, Hide +7*, Jump +11, Listen +6, Move Silently +8, Spot +6

Skills: Shadow Panthers have a +8 racial bonus on Jump checks and a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks. Shadow Panthers have a +8 racial bonus on Balance and Climb checks. A shadow panther can always choose to take 10 on a Climb check, even if rushed or threatened. *In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus improves to +8.

Keep a Leopard's Alertness but they won't benefit from a Leopard's Weapon Finesse, so I'd swap it for Weapon Focus (claws).

Feats: Alertness, Multiattack, Weapon Focus (claws)

 

[Shade]

Skills look good. Let's cut the "*In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus improves to +8.", since that seems more to do with the leopards coloration. If anything, we could give 'em a bonus in areas of shadowy illumination, but that seems redundant with shadow blend.

Both displacer beast and wemic have Stealthy, so I'd prefer that in place of Weapon Focus. It helps ties them in with its "parents" a bit more.

Updated.

CR 5? They are deadlier than both the displacer beast and tiger (both CR 4).

A cloak made of shadow panther fur can add 5% to a rogue's hide in shadows ability but does not allow someone without the ability to hide in shadows.

Cloak grants small bonus on Hide checks, or disregard?

 

[Cleon]

Skills look good. Let's cut the "*In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus improves to +8.", since that seems more to do with the leopards coloration. If anything, we could give 'em a bonus in areas of shadowy illumination, but that seems redundant with shadow blend.

Both displacer beast and wemic have Stealthy, so I'd prefer that in place of Weapon Focus. It helps ties them in with its "parents" a bit more.

Agreed to dropping the undergrowth and substituting Stealthy.

CR 5? They are deadlier than both the displacer beast and tiger (both CR 4).

I was thinking they're about as nasty as a Tiger. They don't have much in they way of special abilities apart from Shadow Blend, and their combat stats are similar.

Tiger - AC 14, hp 45, Full Attack: 2 claws +9 melee (1d8+6) and bite +4 melee (2d6+3) plus maybe 2 rakes +9 melee (1d8+3)

Shadow Panther - AC 15, hp 51, Full Attack: 2 claws +10 melee (1d3+5) and 2 tentacles +8 melee (1d3+2) and bite +8 melee (1d8+2) plus maybe 2 rakes +10 melee (1d3+2)

If all their attacks hit the Tiger's 4d8+18+2d6+3 averages 46 points, the Shadow Panther's 6d3+18+1d8+2 averages 36.5. The Panther's a bit more likely to hit since it's got Multiattack though.

So I'm thinking CR4 is plenty for them.

Cloak grants small bonus on Hide checks, or disregard?

I don't think we need it.

I suppose we could say cloaks of elvenkind are sometimes made from Shadow Panther pelts or something, but most 3E monsters don't bother with special/magic items that can be made from their body parts.

 

[Shade]

That's reasonable. Updated.

Anything left to do?

 

[Cleon]

That's reasonable. Updated.

Anything left to do?

I'm thinking we should change the treasure.

The original stats don't give a treasure type, so I don't think they should have Standard treasure.

Also, 3000 gp seems too high for a standard pelt, since an average CR4 treasure is 1200 gp.

How about:

Treasure: 100% Goods (pelt - see below)

The maximum value of a shadow panther's pelt is equal to the standard treasure value of its challenge rating (1,200 gp for an CR4 shadow panther).
​

A fully maximized Shadow Panther would therefore have a pelt worth 4,500 gp, since it's CR9. (+1 size and +12 HD => +5 CR)

 

[Shade]

I'm fine with the pelt being the only treasure, but I'd rather not tie it to the CR, since no other critters with valuable "bits" work that way. If that doesn't sit well with you, we can just drop the pelt altogether, since the displacer beast doesn't mention it's (presumably) more valuable pelt.

The displacer beast's treasure is: 1/10 coins; 50% goods; 50% items

I'd be fine with either borrowing that, or simply "none".

 

[freyar]

Let's go with the essentially "incidental lair treasure" of the displacer beast. Tying pelt value to CR is pretty distasteful to me, too.

 

[Shade]

Updated. Anything else?

 

[Cleon]

Let's go with the essentially "incidental lair treasure" of the displacer beast. Tying pelt value to CR is pretty distasteful to me, too.

Let's go with what the Displacer Beast has. We've already dropped mention of the pelt's special properties, so we may as well go all the way and not give it a value.